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The Daily TIP: Expert: In Wake of Drone Incursion into Israel, U.S. Must Target Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

Posted by Tip Staff - February 13, 2018

Expert: In Wake of Drone Incursion into Israel, U.S. Must Target Iran’s Revolutionary GuardsIran Displays Nuclear-Capable Ballistic Missile at Parade Celebrating RevolutionTrial Begins for Palestinian Teen who Slapped Soldiers, Called for Suicide BombingsAnheuser-Busch Pays "Tens of Millions" of Dollars for Israeli App that Tracks Beer Sales

Expert: In Wake of Drone Incursion into Israel, U.S. Must Target Iran’s Revolutionary Guards

In the wake of the incursion of an Iranian drone into Israeli airspace Saturday that led to an Israeli military response against targets in Syria, the United States must "military deterrent toward Iranian expansionism" by targeting Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) positions in Syria, an expert on Iran wrote in an op-ed published Monday in the New York Post.

Richard Goldberg, a former foreign policy advisor to Sen. Mark Kirk (R- Ill.), wrote that Iran, by sending a drone into Israel, was testing not just Israel's military response, but also the resolve of the U.S.

Iran, according to Goldberg---who was the author of the toughest sanctions imposed on Tehran before the nuclear deal was agreed to in 2015---doesn't know what to make of President Donald Trump. While Trump campaigned on taking a tougher stance towards Iran and tearing up the nuclear deal, in practice he has imposed "sanctions on Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps" and offered an "uncompromising indictment of the nature of the Iranian regime at the United Nations, but he has not reversed the nuclear deal or taken significant action to roll back Iran's expansionism."

Now would be a good time, Goldberg wrote, to "re-establish a robust military deterrent toward Iranian expansionism in close collaboration with regional allies." Specifically, he recommended that the U.S. "should target key Guards’ bases and weapons in Syria accordingly. Such an approach could help prevent a larger-scale conflict."

Iran displayed a nuclear-capable ballistic missile during parades celebrating the country's 1979 revolution over the weekend, reinforcing concerns that it is in violation of the United Nations Security Council Resolution implementing the nuclear deal, the Washington Free Beacon reported Monday.

The Ghadr (or Qadr) missile, according to Iranian military officials "can be launched from mobile platforms or silos in different positions and can escape missile defense shields due to their radar-evading capability," according to accounts appearing in Iran's state-controlled media.

"Thirty-nine years in, the Islamic Revolution has little to show for its decades in power other than growing the country's asymmetric military capabilities in order to continue their export of the revolution," Behnam Ben Taleblu, an expert on Iran, said.

Taleblu also told the Washington Free Beacon, "The Ghadr can strike Israel when fired from Iranian territory, and in March 2016, was flight-tested while bearing genocidal slogans against the state of Israel." He was referring to a test launch of a missile that had the phrase "Israel must be wiped off the Earth," written on it in Hebrew.

UN Security Council Resolution 2231 formalized the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, “calls upon Iran not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons…”

France and Germany joined the United States and the United Kingdom in August 2017 in sending a letter to UN Secretary General António Guterres, charging that Iran’s launch of a satellite violated resolution 2231.

Trial Begins for Palestinian Teen who Slapped Soldiers, Called for Suicide Bombings

The trial of a Palestinian teen who was seen slapping two Israeli soldiers in a video that went viral while her mother filmed the incident and called for suicide bombings began Tuesday, The Times of Israel reported.

Ahed Tamimi, who comes from a family of anti-Israel activists, is standing trial for the incident in the video and five other incidents including rock throwing, incitement and making threats. The presiding judge in the military court ordered the court cleared of journalists and diplomats saying that an open trial would not be in the interest of the 17-year-old defendant, who is being tried as a minor.

During the incident in which Tamimi slapped the two soldiers, she gave a message to her mother to pass on to viewers of the video:

I hope that everyone will take part in the demonstrations as this is the only means to achieve the result. Our strength is in our stones. Whether it is stabbings or suicide bombings or throwing stones, everyone must do their part and we must unite in order for our message to be heard that we want to liberate Palestine.

Commenting on the case in a conference call hosted by The Israel Project, Lt. Col. (res.) Maurice Hirsch described her parents as "the ones who are really abusing her and pushing her into committing the same offenses." The Israel Project publishes The Tower.

Weissbeerger’s “smart taps” can be placed on beer kegs to measure consumer drinking behavior in real time. They can tell a bar owner how much beer is being consumed, at what times, and which brands are the most popular. The data is analyzed and sent wirelessly to the cloud, where the bar owner can view what’s happening through a mobile iPad app.

The Weissbeerger system is also hooked up the bar’s cash register, so it can compare how much beer flows through the tap with the amount of money collected, reducing waste and minimizing the “freebies” given by bartenders to their friends.